


love is the death of duty

by mentallyinwalmart



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Battle, Episode Fix-It: s08e06 The Iron Throne, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Light Angst, Love, Post-Battle, Post-Episode: s08e05 The Bells, Reunions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18998365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mentallyinwalmart/pseuds/mentallyinwalmart
Summary: an alternative ending for Game of Thrones that is neither wholly happy or sad, simply consistent and well-founded





	1. Sapphire Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha remember when GOT was mysteriously cancelled after 8x04? What a shame that was. Anyway, here is my prediction for what would've happen had we been given a Jaime/Cersei "reunion" and a proper ending  
> Enjoy!  
> \--Bea

She had made it.

She wasn't supposed to be here. She was supposed to be in the North, protecting her Lady from any threat that might seek her out. But something had compelled her to leave, something more than a simple broken heart. It had been the way he had caressed her hand, she decided, that convinced her she had not been mad in thinking perhaps he wanted her too. And even if he didn't, Brienne knew Danaerys would not let him survive another treasonous act. 

Whether he wanted her or not, he did not deserve to die at the Dragon Queen's hand. And for that reason along with so many others, Brienne had followed him, leaving Sansa under the care of her loyal squire, Podrick. She prayed to the gods she was not too late, and that perhaps he could still be saved.

She had taken rest in Tyrion’s tent, where he explained exactly why Jaime had gone back to Cersei. For their baby, for his honor, because he couldn’t let his sister die alone. 

‘And because he doesn’t believe he’s worthy of love.’

When Tyrion had said that Brienne had wept.

But it didn’t matter now, none of it mattered now, because here she was, and there was the Red Keep. Perhaps, somehow, she could save him, save them both, even if he couldn’t love her, even if Tyrion had lied about his true feelings, he deserved life.

He deserved happiness.

The Red Keep loomed above her like a lion rearing up to strike. Brienne took each step as steady as she could as she barreled through passages she couldn’t remember if she’d ever even been in.

She could hear the roar of the dragon above her, she could hear the cries of the people slaughtered outside in the city.

All undercut by the faint, melodic rolling of the bells, of Jaime’s bells.

Onward Brienne pressed, searching for the passage that would lead her to Jaime, to where she knew the exit would be blocked.

She had watched the stones fall, heard the rubble muddled with the screams and the bells to form a melodic, horrifying symphony of sounds.

That sound would echo in her ears as long as she lived.

—

Jaime staggered from one end of the hall to the other, searching for a way out. But there was none. Despite having sent an assassin to kill him a fortnight ago, Cersei had seem disturbed when she saw him hurt. But as sad as she seemed, she still did not stop demanding him to fix things, begging him to make things better somehow, even as he stood, bleeding out in the broken, abandoned expanse of the ruined Red Keep.

He pondered how his skull might look amongst the dragon ones that surrounded them on all sides. 

“Jaime don’t let me die.” His sister screamed, her voice echoing in his ears. “Please don’t let me die.”

He walked towards her and gently rested a hand on her stomach.

“Never, Cersei. As long as I’m living, you and the baby will be safe.”

But when he looked her in the face, something was off. Something in the turn of her mouth and the furrow of her brow.

Suddenly he, who Cersei had always called the stupidest Lannister, put the pieces together, and realized exactly what was going on.

“There is no baby.” Despite his anger, sadness overtook him and his voice trembled. “You lied to me. You tricked me!”

She shook her head, and uttered false protest, but he could see from the flash in her eyes, from the way her voice faltered, he had been right. And he had been wrong, so very wrong.

“Brienne.” He whispered, staring at the trembling ceiling above him.

“What about the wench?” Cersei demanded, “did she warn you I was lying? If she did it was only because she loves you. She always has you know, that hideous—”

But her words died on her tongue as she saw the heartbreak in Jaime’s eyes. In their years together she had seen many things in those clear blue eyes: grief when their children had died one by one, joy in the most fleeting of moments, anger most commonly, and of course lust, a hungering want he used to have for her. But it had been years since then, and here, now, was the first time heartbreak had ever laid to rest in those crystal blue eyes.

“I love her, Cersei.”

Cersei shook her head but Jaime pressed on, taking another step towards her.

“Didn’t you wonder why I didn’t come immediatley? I was staying in the north. With her.”

“Lie.” Cersei snapped, “you love me. You have always loved me.”

“I have.” He says whistfully, looking through the pinhole of natural light at the top of one pile of rubble. “But don’t you wonder why I didn’t slaughter everyone at riverrun? Why I offered Brienne Oathkeeper even when it was all I had left?”

“Because you’re a kindhearted fool.” Cersei snapped, stepping forward and gripping his shoulders. “But you love me.”

“As a sister. And in the twisted way you have conditioned me to treat my sister. But more than that I loved the baby. I came back, because after I held Myrcella’s body as she turned cold in my arms, after I had to pick up the pieces of what Tommen did because of you,” he paused and swallowed, “I swore to protect my children with every breathe. And each time I have failed. I told myself I would not fail again.”

“We can have children, Jaime. I can give you that if it’s what you want, I am your mate for life. We came into this world together, we were never meant to live apart.”

But Jaime shook his head and stepped away from his sister, stepped away from everything he had been, and everything he might have become if he'd made other choices. With each step back he thought of the decisions he had made that had distanced him from Cersei. From the loss of his hand, to the battle of winter fell, each one could be traced back to two things: his determination to protect the innocent, the only vow he had ever truly kept, and his admiration for Brienne, the woman who treated him with respect and courtesy, even kindness, when the rest of the world decided he was beyond saving. The woman who had renewed his belief in the sanctity of knighthood and restored his faith in the goodness of people.

He wished he had told her all of it. 

“Perhaps we were meant for one another. But our love is poisoned. All those around us are hurt at its hand.” He stopped ten paces back from her. "Our brother, our children, the good people of Kings Landing." His shoulders slumped and he pressed a hand to his wounded abdomen. "The boy I tossed from the window of that old tower."

"Brandon Stark lives." Cersei said, nostrils flaring as she took in her wounded brother. 

But Jaime remembered the way Bran had spoken to him before the battle with the dead and shook his head solemnly. Brandon Stark was dead. His body might be breathing still, but something else had taken up rest in his soul. He looked at his golden hand and thought about Brienne, about the way her eyes sparkled. The way her voice had sounded whispering his name against his skin, moaning it in the dead of night. The way she had touched his scars so tenderly and told him he was all the more handsome for them. The way her lips had felt against his.

And the way her eyes had danced with tears as she asked him to stay.

A large piece of ceiling fell and separated him and Cersei. Rocks, followed by more tumbled down until he was trapped in a corner and she, well he didn’t know where she was.

“Cersei?” His voice shook. “Cersei?”

“Jaime.” She called from the other side. “Jaime can you get around here? I think I see a way out.”

“I—” he surveyed the rocks around him before shaking his head. “I can’t.”

“Goodbye Jaime.”

He could barely hear her final words through the noise of the ceiling rumbling and the bells tolling. He wished he could touch Brienne one last time. He closed his eyes, letting the darkness around him close in, succumbing to the stab wounds in his abdomen. He slumped against the stone wall and let his eyes flutter shut, determined not to watch himself be crushed. He could almost here Tyrion commenting on the irony of his success in saving Cersei, and how it had cost him his life.

But through his eyelids suddenly there was light. He forced his eyes open to see the sky above him, somehow the keep had crumbled in such a way that perhaps, he would be able to bleed out peacefully. Or as peacefully as possible, he thought as he watched the clouds muddle with smoke and ash and float across the sky.

Despite himself, his eyes once again fluttered closed, and even under the strength of all his willpower, he couldn’t pry them back open. He could almost here Brienne’s voice, calling him by his name. It had to be the wind.

“Jaime Lannister what on earth are you doing?”

A gentle hand on his face, too gentle to be Cersei, and an embrace around his middle startled him back into the big of consciousness he had left.

“I’m dying.” He managed to whisper as he opened his eyes to see the face he could’ve sworn he had dreamt.

“You can’t die now.” Her voice shook and he tried to raise his hand to caress her cheek but to no avail. Instead, he smiled.

“I’ll die when I damn well please.” He whispered and she let out a breathy sob.

“Not on my watch.” She whispered.

She scooped him into her arms and, with ease he marveled at, climbed over the crest of rocks and out of the rubble.

“I don’t deserve you.” He said as his eyes fluttered close once again.

She shook him slightly, and he blinked at her frowning face above him.

“You’re a good man, Jaime.” She said, continuing her march to only the gods knew where.

He didn't have the energy to protest. When she finally set him down, he felt he had no more fight in him. Not even for her, for she who had driven him to feats he didn’t know he was capable of, could he continue.

“Don’t you die on me Lannister.” She whispered as someone began tearing his shirt open to get at his wounds.

“You’ll be better off without me.”

She caressed his face as something cold was smeared across his torso. She gently ran a hand through his grimy hair, and then once again over his cheek, her fingers soft and delicate despite the callouses.

“Perhaps I would be. But that’s my mistake to make. And besides” her voice faltered and she kissed his bleeding hand, “I’ll be damned to the seven hells if I raise a Lannister’s bastard.”

His eyes widened as he looked her in the face. And in it, all he saw was honesty. Was the truth of the matter.

“I love you.” He whispered before his eyes fluttered closed once more.

But now he knew he would not, could not die. Now he had more than the love of her to live for. He had that baby. A baby he was already sure would have sapphire eyes.


	2. The Starks Send Their Regards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has two POV's, Sansa and Arya! (but don't worry, Jaime and Brienne will be back!!) Hope you enjoy :)

Sansa and the few advisors she had left in the north moved for King’s Landing the same night as Brienne, leaving Bran in charge of Winterfell. She didn’t know exactly what drove her to go, but something pulled at her. 

Deep in her soul Sansa knew, if she did not go, Jon would not survive. That perhaps she’d already waited too long to save her beloved brother. 

And so she threw formality and comfort to the wind and demanded her advisors ride all day on horseback, with several thousand Northmen riding at their back. Every man who wasn’t needed home at his keep or to stay and defend Winterfell was summoned, and they all went with her willingly. 

The ride was grueling, but it paid off in the end, as Sansa and her bannerman arrived at King’s Landing while the ash was still fresh in the air and the smoke still rose from the demolished Capitol.

Despite every awful thing that had happened there, Sansa couldn’t help but remember the good moments in King’s Landing. Of the first Tourney where Loras had presented her with the rose, of her long walks in the garden with Margaery. Of all the little moments in which Tyrion had saved her from Joffrey’s torments. 

She felt tears prick at her eyes as she surveyed the mass of rubble that was her adolescent home. No matter how abhorrent it was, no matter how the people had cheered for her fathers execution all those years ago, she could not think of any peasant who deserved to die in the hellfire the Dragon Queen had rained down. 

She had left her bannerman still setting up camp on the horizon, ready to march when she would order them. Prepared to take down the remaining Dothraki and Unsullied or die trying. She prayed to the seven it wouldn’t come to that. She had watched Brienne drag a near death Jaime Lannister into Maester Samwell’s tent before it was even completely pitched. Despite what he had done in the past, Brienne was steadfast on his survival, and how her love for him, and so Sansa widened the scope of her prayers to encompass him as well. 

Lannister wasn’t awake, but Brienne has briefed her on Cersei, and the way the Knight believed she’d gone. Accompanied only by Podrick, Sansa honed in on her target, and together the Lady and the Squire set off to capture the great, wicked Queen.  
—  
Arya has tried not to weep as she watched the bodies burned. But not even the matter of fact killing that was the method of the faceless men could’ve prepared her for such bloodshed. She had looked deep into Sandor Clegane’s eyes amidst the bloodshed and known that in his own way he was saying goodbye. She wished she could’ve taken his advice. But Cersei was the final name on her list, and Arya knew she would never be able to rest if the queen escaped justice.

Arya rose from the rubble and ash and weakly began her trek back to the Red Keep. She followed the path of destruction down down down into the belly of the Keep, working her way through the tiniest of cracks, until she was back in the very room she had been in so many years ago. The room where she had chased the cats, and first seen the monstrous dragon skulls. 

She searched for Cersei’s body, for some indication that perhaps the queen really was dead. But while red blood was speckled across all the stones, no body, no crown, not even a limb could be seen of the queens. Arya scales the wall of fallen ceiling and squeezed through a small opening to find herself on the beach, or more of a small rocky inlet, with Cersei Lannister perched upon a rock at its center, the body of Euron Greyjoy not too many paces away. And holding the Queen’s short hair in her white knuckled grip, a steel dagger pressed to her pale throat, was Yara Greyjoy. 

“Don’t make too much mess of it.” Arya called to Theon’s sister.

The older woman turned on Arya, raising the knife while still holding Cersei’s head back. But she relaxed ever so slightly when she spotted the smallest Stark. 

“Who do you serve?” Yara asked, returning the knife to Cersei’s throat.

“No one.” Arya said, raising her chin to the Salt-princess. “I serve no one, I belong to no one.”

“You better not kill her.” Arya whirled around to face the long familiar voice coming from the incline above her. “This vengeance is mine.”

Yara Greyjoy turned as well to face Sansa Stark, dark red hair of the Tully's blowing in the wind and she gripped the dagger Arya had given her before the battle for the living. 

“Gods,” Yara cursed, “it’s like a bloody Stark reunion.”  
—  
“Who do you serve?” Yara’s next words had a bite to them her last had not and Sansa straightened as she and the Squire began their descent.

“I serve my people, I serve the north.” She paused as she gestured to the smoke that hung heavy in the air, “and I serve the living.”

“You mean to cast blame on the Dragon Queen?” Yara demanded as Sansa stepped closer, “you do know the ways of the iron born, don’t you? I would have figured the time you spent with my brother might’ve at least taught you that.”

But Sansa was not deterred.

“I know the ways of the iron born. But I also know that your Queen told you to abandon them, if she were to grant your request for emancipation.” Yara opened her mouth but couldn’t find words. “And I know your goal above all is to secure independence for your people.” She stepped forward on the rocks, til she was only a few paces from the dark haired woman. “Just as it is mine.”

Yara stayed silent for a beat, as if contemplating exactly what might come next.

“Queen Danaerys promised us independence.” She started, but Sansa leveled a look back at her.

“She also promised not to be Queen of the ashes. She promised she was not her father.” Sansa gestured once again to the smoke rising from the city and the abnormal heat from the dragon fire all around. “Tell me, princess, does this seem like the actions of someone intent on keeping their word?”

Yara thought for a long moment,

“I will stand by you, Lady Stark, if our independence is to be won, it would seem it must be fought for together.”

“It would appear as though you’re right.” Sansa said. 

Yara leveled a long glance at Sansa and her sister before dropping Cersei to the ground, giving her a good kick in the ribs before she stepped back.

And for the first time in years, Cersei spoke to Sansa.

“How you’ve grown, little Bird.”

Sansa felt her stomach turn, and despite everything, despite all she had endured, this voice of dropping, honeyed horror still chilled her to the bone. She stepped up and helped the queen up, a hand on her shoulder as she looked deep into her green eyes. 

“You don’t have the stomach for death, little Bird.” Cersei cooed, “What are you going to do, call in your little hound to do the deed for you?” She nodded in Arya’s direction.

Sansa stiffened, but did not remove her hand from its right grip on the Queen’s shoulder.

“Perhaps the little bird couldn’t.” Sansa said, pulling herself to her full height to look down on the woman who’d haunted her dreams for so long. “But the Lady Of Winterfell can.”

She slipped the knife up and under Cersei’s ribs and into her heart before the cruel blonde even had a moment to respond, twisting at with a satisfying crack as it lodged in her chest. She leaned in very close to Cersei’s ear.

“The Stark’s send their regards.”

She let go of the body and watched as it slumped to the stones below, blood flowing out of her wound like murky water. 

Sansa regarded the queen for a long moment, finally letting herself let go of Cersei, her mother figure turned personal demon, her first abuser, collapse into nothing before her. She felt no strong emotion, simply a wash of relief deep in her soul, and a cooling feeling that justice had been served. She stepped back and turned to face the three people around her, meeting each of their eyes once before reaching down to remove the dagger from the body of the queen and wipe it on her cloak.

“Princess Yara, you are more than welcome at the northern encampment as an ally.”

She extended her hand to the Greyjoy woman who regarded it for a moment before shaking it. Sansa gripped her hand and focused her mind as best she could on the next task at hand.

“Arya.” She turned to her sister after Greyjoy dropped the handshake. “You’re coming with us. The four of us are going back to the camp, and from there we will strategize how on earth we might possibly come out of this nightmare with even a few survivors.”  
—  
Arya opened her mouth to protest but Sansa raised a hand and silenced her with a long look. She knew that despite how well she could fend for herself, now that fate had once again tied the strings of her and her sister, she would not be allowed to waltz off again.

So, she nodded and the band of the four unlikely allies marched back in solemn silence towards the Northern encampment, leaving Cersei's body to rot on the shores besides Euron. Or perhaps, Arya thought, become dragon food. As they walked, she let her mind wander back to the task at hand, and wondered if she might be the one to once again deliver a fatal blow on behalf of the living.


	3. Not Today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya, Sansa, and Jon are reunited. We learn exactly what happened with Arya in the city, the white horse, and what might become of the Prince who was promised.

Jon didn’t know what he was doing dragging Cersei Lannister’s limp corpse down the beach and to the Northern camp, but he’d never really been one to question Sansa’s authority. He picked his way across the ash ridden field towards the familiar grey tents of the North and her bannerman. 

“Lord Stark.” Brienne’s Squire seemed to appear out of nowhere. “Or, Lord Snow. King Stark?” He looked confused and Jon shook his head, waving a hand to the young man. 

“Just Jon is fine.” He said as the dark haired boy moved to help him with the body he hauled. “Remind me of your name?”

“Podrick.” The Squire nodded, hefting the corpse as though it was nothing. “Podrick Payne. But Pod is fine.” 

Jon offered him a hand and he took it, the two of them shaking hands across the former Queen’s corpse. It was almost poetic. But Jon was no poet, and this was no time for distraction.

“Do you know why we’re bringing the blasted body back?” Jon asked as they began their walk back to the tents.

“Do you um. Well, do you, you know?” He motioned to his face, “that thing your sister does?”

Jon sighed. In the brief time they’d had together Arya had been utterly unhelpful in explaining the logistics of her gifts from the many faced god. But he wasn’t about to deny its existence. 

“So that’s to be the plan then?” He said, his voice pained as he and the Squire crested the hill. “Deal her a blow in fowl play?”

Podrick shrugged, furrowing his brow.

“I wasn’t in Kings Landing,” He started, looking down at his hands, “but from what I heard it was a bloodbath.” He turned once again to face him and Jon could see the sadness in his eyes. “I don’t think the people are safe under her rule. Certainly not your sisters, especially Lady Sansa.” He paused again and Jon thought on how fidgety he was, “And certainly not my Mistress.” 

“Lady Brienne?” Jon asked, and Podrick nodded. 

“Ser Brienne, actually. Ser Jaime knighted her back in Winterfell.” He said, straightening slightly, a look of pride coming over his face, “She aided and abetted the Queen’s prisoner. And so did Tyrion—Lord Tyrion that is.” 

“She wouldn’t hurt them.” Jon said, but the words which yesterday he would've been able to voice with such conviction now sounded hollow.

It struck him for the first time how short a time he’d known the dragon queen. And for how much of that time he’d loved her. He wondered if he’d been blind to her ambitions, and potential signs of what was imminent because of the feelings he’d had— he still had.

“As you say, Ser.” Podrick said and Jon opened his mouth to correct him that he was no knight, but before he could Sansa and Arya’s voices carried through the air.

“Oh thank the Seven.” He had barely dropped the body before Sansa was on him, wrapping him in a tight, but tender embrace. She pulled away and cupped his face in her hands. “Thank the seven you’re okay, Jon.” 

Jon wanted to be cold, to turn a shoulder to her for telling Tyrion and Varys of his heritage. But when he saw that the pain he’d hoped would fade from the lines of her face in the weeks after Theon’s death remained, he could not bear to make it worse. Her eyes which used to sing of love and hope now looked hollow, as though someone had gutted her spirit.

“Sansa.” He felt his voice crack as she pulled him back into an embrace. He held her tightly and felt tears prickling at his own eyes.

The Squire was right, there was no hope for her. Dany would want her revenge for everything that had happened, for the things that had come from the truth of Jon’s heritage. 

Jon turned on Arya and Podrick, who seemed about to slice the face off of the dead queen right then and there and held up a hand. 

“Arya.” He said, “Please. I’m begging you please, let me talk to the queen. Let me see if I can reason with her.”

“She’s not welcome here.” His younger sister snapped, her nostrils flaring. On closer inspection he could see that ash stained her face and her eyes were watery from tears and smoke alike.

“Gods, Arya. You weren’t in the city were you?”

Arya raised her chin defiantly. 

“Of course I was. I was on my way to kill her.” She gestured to Cersei. 

Jon dropped to his knees and yanked the tiny girl into his arms, tears once again breaking glass in his eyes and falling freely down his cheeks.

“Gods in heaven Arya, you could’ve been killed.”

Arya muttered several protests, but she let herself be hugged by her older brother and Jon was thankful for it.  
—  
“I watched them burn, Jon.” Arya hated herself for the tremor that haunted her voice. “I tried to bring them to safety. Tried to hide them away from the danger. But the building came down on us.” Once again her voice shook and she blinked furiously as she looked into her brothers round eyes.

“How are you unhurt?” He asked, rubbing his hands across her arms and shoulders. “By the Gods mercy Arya, how did you survive?!”

Arya swallowed and looked over his shoulder at her sister, at the magnificent red wolf who stood over them protectively. She watched as Sansa instructed Podrick and the surrounding guards to take Cersei’s body back to camp, saying they’d be back soon. 

Once they were alone, Arya pushed her hair back from the right side of her head to reveal a cruel gash that ought to have spilt her brains on the stone and left her to die of bloodloss hours ago. But as she ran a hand over the miraculous scar tissue that had been formed when she awoke, she heard Jon gasp.

“I didn’t.” As hard as she tried to make her voice it came as only a whisper. “I didn’t Jon. I died there, in the rubble, among the innocents, all those children I dragged inside to try and save.” Tears ran down her cheeks so quickly she didn’t bother wiping her eyes.

“Oh gods.” Jon said and Arya looked back to see he looked as though he’d seen a ghost. “Oh Arya.” He took her face in his hands and pressed her forehead to his. “But the red woman is dead—how did you?”

But Arya shook her head, letting him take her hands as she sat back on her heels. 

“It was the many faced god. Or the red god. I’m not completely sure. All I know is there was nothing, and then this swirling mottle Of faces and colors and sounds.” She blinked the tears from her eyes. “There was a white hose standing in the wreckage. There was complete silence and that horse. At first I thought it was bran, doing the warging thing. But I looked in its eyes and they were completely black. So dark it was as if I was staring into nothing at all.”

Arya watched as Sansa stiffened as she repeated the story. Her sister had cried the first time she’d heard it, and Arya had wished she would’ve left with Podrick when it was time to tell Jon. The heartbreak on her sisters face was almost too much for her to handle. So she turned back to Jon. 

“I rode the horse through miles of rubble and ash. I searched for survivors and found no one. Finally, there was someone, on the horizon.” She paused and inhaled deeply, “I couldn’t make out his face but I had heard his voice. It was a voice Jaquen used in the temple of the Many Faced God, and his cloak was the color of the bloody ash that covered the streets.” Arya squeezed Jon’s hands as she pressed on. “Much of what he said was unclear. But all I know is my purpose was still to come. That I was useful to the Gods, because like the man who had to be saved so I might stop the endless Night, there was more I must do so the Prince who was promised may succeed to sit on the throne.”

Jon shook his head and tried to pull away but Arya gripped his hands.

“It must have been a dream.” He said, shaking his head again, but Arya surprised even herself by reaching up and smacking him smartly across the face. 

“It wasn’t a dream!” Her voice rang shrill in her ears and she hated how childish she must sound. “It wasn’t, Jon. I didn’t even know what the Prince who was promised meant. But when I came back, Sansa explained it to me, explained the red woman, and everything she predicted.” Arya let out a shaky breath. “Please, Jon. You have to let me do this.”  
—  
Jon shivered as he stared into his sisters eyes. He wanted to believe his own lies, wanted to think that it was all some fever dream. But as he looked into the same dark stark eyes that existed in his own sockets, he saw the look he knew all too well. The look of someone whose natural time had come, but that the gods had brought back for their own will.

He stood up and helped Arya to her feet, dropping her hands before looking between his tall and short sisters. 

“I never thought…” He whispered, wringing his hands. “When I met her she was so…” 

He couldn’t even get out a complete sentence. So much had happened, and he was so, very tired. But as he looked between the eyes shared by Robb and their father, strong and steadfast in the face of his sisters, he knew what must be done.

“Let me speak to her first.” He whispered. “Let me just see if I can convince her.”

“Convince her of what?” Arya asked and Sansa stared at him with suspicion that cut at his heart like a knife. 

“To go back to Mereen. To go back where the people love her. To take her men and her horse lords and leave Westeros.”

Arya opened her mouth to protest but Sansa rested a firm hand on her sisters shoulder.

“Fine.” He breathed a sigh of relief but inhaled it just as quickly when she spoke again. “But Arya is going with you.”

“I have one of the Unsullied faces. Heard him yell a battle call just before he was slaughtered by his own queens dragon fire.” She straightened her shoulders. “You are not going in alone.”

She had seen too much. Jon could see it in her dark, haunted eyes. When they’d reunited at their childhood home she’d seemed hardened in a similar way Sansa had. But now, that fierce protective instinct and fearful distrust in the good of humanity seemed to consume her. Like him, she’d died. But unlike him, it had not been peaceful. Arya Stark had looked death in the face, and emerged to tell the tale.

“Alright.” He said. “How long will it take?”

Before the words had even left his lips Arya was on the move, practically running towards the grey tents that flapped in the winter wind.

“I’m sorry Sansa—” Jon started, but the tall red head shook her head. 

“I know you need this, Jon. I know you need to look her in the face and know you did everything you could.” She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead before turning away. “I will content myself with praying her generals or her dragon doesn’t kill you on sight.”

Jon’s heart sank as he watched Sansa walk away, her ladylike stature not at all matching the heartbreak he had heard so clearly in her voice. If he survived, he swore a silent oath to the old gods and new that he would never make her feel that way again. Never let anyone make her feel that way again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoy! Would loveeee to hear what you think :)


	4. Goodbye

He thought the mark would fade. That the horrible dark thing that marred his arm would finally vanish when the Night King was truly gone. 

But as he looked down at his arm, he saw in the previous weeks the horrendous thing had only grown in size, and in darkness. Now it stretched from his forearm to his hand, and he had to keep his sleeves pulled all the way down to stop it from showing. But there was another new addition. One invisible to any other humans eye, one that could not be seen, but had appeared as the mark had begun to grow. 

The reedy, haunting voice of the Children of the Forrest whispered through his brain in tune with the three eyed raven. And no amount of noise or background chatter could stop it.

He wondered why he didn’t tell Sansa. The mark has been a month grown when his sister had left, leaving him and all the guards she could spare to man Winterfell. But those voices had told him not to, that still there was more in store. 'Keep silent, black raven', and like a fool, he had.

He remembered the conversation from the cave of the old three eyed raven perfectly. Remembered how and why the Night King was first made. That his purpose was to protect the Children from the evils humanity brought, and save them from extinction. 

But the children were gone, and much of humanity with them. He wondered if the voice was one left, or perhaps, many left, crying out from somewhere far in the north, begging him to help them. 

But to help them with what?  
—  
‘Brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes. Eyes you’ll shut forever.’ Melisandre’s haunting final words echoed in Arya’s ears. 

Walked Frey, Littlfinger, the Night King. She had followed the red witch’s orders and fulfilled the prophecy. All of them were dead. Her list was complete. 

She thought of Daenerys in her minds eye and pictured her round green eyes. Perhaps she’d been wrong about Littlefinger. Not wrong to kill him of course, no, that he had more than deserved. But been wrong about him being the owner of those fateful green eyes. 

She looked at her face in the mirror, at the unsullied that stared back at her in the painted silver. She pulled the cloak's hood down over her eyes and left quickly, holding needle close amongst the folds of fabric at her side.

Jon had gone last night, back to his dragon queen so she wouldn’t suspect anything. Sansa had confessed to Arya late in the evening when neither of them could sleep that she worried Jon would alert the queen to the plan. Or that perhaps he loved her enough to betray them all just because of his blind faith in her.

But Arya wouldn’t believe it. She’d grown to become no one, to trust no one, and no one alone. But despite everything, Jon cared for the innocents, and Jon cared for his family. She had comforted Sansa as best, albeit awkwardly, as she could, before leaving her. 

She passed by her sister's tent. A small one, thirty some odd paces from the large decadent tent of the Stark family. In the days before the second Targaryen conquest it had been standard for the noble man or woman commander of a camp to reside in the commander or nobility tent, and even sometimes host treaty drafting sessions in it. 

But it had been decided with minimal opposition that with honor-less Queen residing in Kings Landing it was simply unsafe for Sansa to be housed in such an open target. 

Arya stalked past the fluttering flaps of the dark grey tent, knuckles white around needles hilt. Every time she saw the stark emblem she felt the smallest stab of guilt. True, she was back with her sister and brothers, and had no intention to leave again for at least a good while. But she had left. Left for vengeance, to complete her list, so she wouldn’t have to become a lady. Not something she was incapable of being, but something she simply did not want. 

“Lady Stark.” A voice she couldn’t quite place carried across the night air and Arya whirled on the person behind her. 

“Not a lady.” She said, her voice coming out in the thick rasp of the Unsullied body she’d taken.

“Of course.” Her eyes widened as she looked into the blue eyes above her. “But I wonder if you'd be interested in a little bit of advice. It’s quite a thing you’re off to do.”  
—  
The broken tower was as horribly beautiful as he remembered. If not a little bit overgrown.

The strong serving boy who’d carried him off stood awkwardly by the door as Bran sat in the windowsill. He had not been up here in so very long. Not since he could walk, and climb and jump. Not since he had a future ahead of him.

'Come to us, black raven.' The haunting voices in his mind beckoned. 

“M’lord we really ought to be going.” The serving boy said, “it’ll be night soon. And I don’t know how comfortable I am carrying you back down in the darkness.”

Bran nodded, but his mind was already gone, searching the south for a Raven. Searching for a way to speak to his sisters, or to Jon. He found one, and landed silently on a branch above Arya and a man he knew all too well. Ironic, Bran mused, that he would be there. The blue eyes of Jaime Lannister glimmered in the first starlight as he gave his sister information regarding what it meant to kill a monarch, even a mad one.  
—  
“I don’t care” Arya quipped back at the Knight before her. “I’m no one, what does it matter the status of my honor.” She had done away with the face of the unsullied after Jaime had made it clear he wasn't going to just let her walk away. 

He had watched, sickly enamored as she gently put the face in her satchel and slumped back into her own sallow skin.

“We’re different, you and me.” Jaime replied, resisting the urge to put a hand on her shoulder, to try to make her understand. “But we’re also so similar. The same really.”

The girl before him went silent for a moment and he shifted awkwardly on his feet. His abdomen ached, but no longer did he feel as if every breath might be his last. 

“I’m no knight, no kingsguard. I’m an assassin. This is just another name on my list.”

He looked down at her, into her eyes which told of such tragedy in such a short life.

“Tell me, ‘no one’,” He said, tilting his head slightly, “why did you kill the ones you did?”

“They were on my list.” She replied without missing a beat. 

“But why were they on your list? What had they done?”

“They wronged me. Me and my family.”

He let his mouth twist into a smirk and saw her level a glare at him, seeming to deduce where he was going before he even spoke his next words.

“That was honor that compelled you, Stark.” He said, “Call it what you will, seven hells maybe I’m wrong calling it honor.” He paused, “it was your equivalent of what the honor of the kingsguard was for me.” He but his lip as he continued, refusing to break eye contact with the haggard teenager before him. “But it will be different. To kill for the innocents, to kill for every horrible thing that might yet happen. To kill to save.”  
—  
Bran had already watched Jaime kill the mad king. Had watched more than once as his sword shook as the kings corpse collapsed before him, and the teenage Lion sat down upon the iron throne.

But to hear him speak of it struck a different cord in Bran. 

‘Kill to save. Kill for every horrible thing that might yet happen.’ Though he knew it was impossible, Bran felt as if Jaime had been speaking to him. He opened his eyes back to the dusk that had fallen in the broken tower and smiled at his manservant. The man moved closer but Bran held up a hand, looking at the mark of the Night King that continued to bleed like dark ink across his sallow skin. 

The fall was just the same as the first, endless, horrifying, glorious. But this time it was missing the fear the first had. The voices screamed in his ear, cheering him for making the right choice, for fulfilling his destiny, the path the gods had chosen for him. The raven that crossed his vision the same as it had all those years ago imploring him to fly, to choose the raven and to choose omnipotence. 

He let himself hit the ground, his head cracking on the hardness below him. As though his consciousness was thrown from his body on impact, he opened his eyes to look down on his empty body, to watch his eyes flicker a glorious, enticing blue. 

As the blue grew to an electric glow, the voices screamed in his ears, begging for him to take the vessel. 

He watched the eyes close and the voices face to nothing. Suddenly his body looked smaller, leaner, weaker as it lay broken on the ground. And as his mortal form disappeared into a mist in his vision, for the first time in years he felt his legs, felt as if he might run, or jump, or dance. 

Before he let himself go, to be at peace, finally free to rest at long last, he focused hard, on the Raven he had inhabited not long before.  
—  
“Goodbye” the ravens crude voice sent Arya spinning on her heel, ignoring the fact that she was now in a vulnerable position, were it the Lannister man’s intentions to stab her.

But as they both edged closer to the raven she felt thankful to not be alone. Even if the only one around her was him, this man. The bird repeated its word, it’s voice growing softer, its eyes a milky white. She knew in an instant this was no ordinary bird. It was her brother, and something was horribly, horribly wrong.

“Bran.” She reached up but was not near high enough to take hold of the small sputtering bird. 

“Here.” Lannister took the somewhat limp bird in his large hand and offered it to Arya. She took it, grunting her thanks as she cradled the bird.

“Bran?” Arya whispered, realizing she had never held a raven before, had never even seen a dead raven before today. But as the final goodbye faded within the cask of the birds beak, she realized now she had. 

The bird was dead in her small hands, sleek feathers fluttering slightly as the last twitches of life left its body. 

“Bran.” She whispered again, finding tears somehow on her cheeks. “Bran.”

The raven did not stir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey my dudes!  
> Thanks for reading this far :) I am not an expert on the Bran/3-eyed raven plot line because the show was hella flakey on it and it confused me in the books so I did my best :)  
> I hope you enjoyed, let me know if you'd like to see more/what you thought worked or didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.  
> I'm planning to add more chapters to this, to wrap up everything. Please let me know if you liked it, and if you'd want to read more :)  
> xx  
> bea


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